how not to end a season (night race recap)

everything was perfect for the night race. the organizers and volunteers had done a great job, the trails were in perfect shape and the weather was holding just well enough to not have to dress very heavy. a little over 50 people showed up and everyone was in a great mood. group rollout to the start, ogara says readysetgo and we're off. climb the long gravel, left into van peenen and head for the single track. trevor olsen was first onto the singletrack at fred's with me in second and max anderson in third. pretty happy with my position at this point cause i know trevor's had some great results in expert wors races this year and i was right on his wheel. didn't know who was in third but felt like the three of us were starting to pull away. knew trevor was down to just his handlebar lights because of problems with his helmet light so i almost asked to get around before the downhill but chose not to. fuck. start bombing down fred's (less than 10 minutes into the race and maybe a half mile into the singletrack). we were moving. and just like that the race was over. wrapped my bike around a tree. i remember the instant recognition of what was happening when my bars hit the tree, and i remember getting to my feet and realizing i was a good ten yards from my bike. don't remember anything in between. apparently it was so bad trevor, who was in front of me, heard it and stopped. max (in third) stopped to check on me. nothing hurt but the bike which is yet to be assessed (hoping nothing's broken, but definitely unrideable). max and trevor rolled on around the hairpin halfway down fred's then trevor slashes a sidewall at the bottom of fred's. max had a good run after that and took the race by something like 3 minutes. huge congrats to marc folkedahl for reminding everyone that he's still one of the fast guys in town with a second place finish. congrats to sarge and brad crawford for third and fourth, respectively. trevor rockwell, eric clement, jimmy tripp and travis grawin made it 7 locals in the top 10. spinner finished the race pedaling with only one leg after breaking a pedal off. biggest congrats of the night goes to garrett mcalister for deciding to do this race on a borrowed bike, borrowed light and only his fourth mountain bike ride ever. dude is a total roadie and finished in the top half of the field...couldn't be happier for him and the rest of the locals that showed up and threw down. as for me...last mountain bike race of the year as far as i know. coming out of the debacle that was september i was really looking forward to finishing the season on a good note and had very high expectations for myself going into this. i know i should be pretty happy that i walked away from what was one of my worst crashes in a really long time but its pretty hard not to be frustrated. but, so it is. been putting my schedule together for next year and there's plenty to be excited about. in the meantime, travis will be working his magic to make sure nothing's seriously wrong with the jabber (broken black sheep fork? trashed king headset? cracked carbon bars?). gonna overhaul the whole thing while he's at it...thanks travis. maybe a few more cross races and back to the gravel grind.